Figure 8.

Increase in the culture time of MSCs in the presence of BMP-2 and TGF-β1 to a total of 42 days and its influence on the expression of mRNAs encoding specific markers of hyaline articular cartilage. Equine MSCs derived from bone marrow were amplified and seeded in collagen sponges at P4 (n = 3). They were then cultured in hypoxia (3% O₂) for 28 and 42 days (D28 and D42, respectively) in the presence of incomplete chondrogenic medium (ICM) alone or in association with BMP-2 (50 ng/mL) and TGF-β1 (10 ng/mL) (BMP-2 + TGF-β1). The D0 condition corresponds to the stem cells cultured in monolayer at P4 with the amplification medium. mRNA levels of Col2a1 (A); Acan (B) and Snorc (C) were estimated by RT-qPCR after normalization relative to the β-actin reference gene. The Col2a1:Col1a1 ratio is shown (D). The results are presented as floating bars (mean, extreme values) and the significance of the values was tested using Student’s t-test.